below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
67%
of similar roles. Most pay
$147,137–$216,675
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$209k
versus about
$182k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is a global technology leader producing software, hardware, and cloud services including Windows, Office 365, Azure cloud platform, Xbox gaming, and Surface devices. Industry: Software & Cloud Computing
Microsoft currently has
694 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 651 roles with salary data.
The Principal Site Reliability Engineering Manager leads a team responsible for building and operating Substrate services within highly regulated environments. This role involves managing Site Reliability Engineer ICs to ensure high availability, reliability, and security for foundational cloud infrastructure. You will lead teams in writing production code, building automation and self-healing systems, and establishing SLOs, SLIs, and operational metrics. Key responsibilities include leading incident management, conducting disaster recovery game days, and partnering with feature engineering teams to embed compliance and security into early designs. The position requires expertise in software engineering fundamentals, including clean code, robust telemetry, and disciplined engineering lifecycle practices. You will utilize AI-assisted techniques to reduce operational toil while managing services that support critical workloads like Exchange Online and M365 Copilot.
Lead and develop a team of Site Reliability Engineers through coaching and career guidance.
Own the operational health, availability, and incident readiness of Substrate services in regulated environments.
Establish and drive SLOs, SLIs, and operational metrics to improve reliability and diagnosability.
Lead incident management and post-incident reviews to drive systemic fixes and automation.
Participate in an on-call rotation and provide hands-on leadership during high-priority incidents.
Coordinate disaster recovery exercises and maintain auditable operational playbooks and restore procedures.
Partner with product teams to embed reliability, security, and compliance into early service design.
Influence technical and operational strategy for cross-cutting reliability challenges across multiple organizations.
What we're looking for
Must have a Doctorate with 2+ years, Master's with 3+ years, or Bachelor's with 5+ years of technical experience in software, network, or systems engineering.
Equivalent experience to the degree and years of experience requirements is accepted.
Must be a U.S. citizen.
Must possess an active U.S. Government Secret Security Clearance.
Must be able to pass a Microsoft Cloud background check.
7+ years of technical experience working with large-scale cloud or distributed systems (preferred).
3+ years of people management experience (preferred).
Doctorate Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field AND 2+ years technical.
Site Reliability Engineering
Distributed Systems
Observability
Automation
SLO
Incident Response
Network Engineering
Systems Administration
Security
Compliance
High Availability
Site Reliability Engineering
Distributed Systems
Observability
Automation
Software Development
System Design
Incident Response
Network Engineering
Systems Administration
Site Reliability Engineering
Distributed Systems
Telemetry
Automation
Monitoring
Alerting
Incident Response
Capacity Planning
Root Cause Analysis
System Design
Network Engineering
Systems Administration
Site Reliability Engineering
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Python
Ansible
Chef
PowerShell
Bash
Linux
Windows Server
infrastructure-as-code
Observability
Capacity Planning
Incident Response
STIG
DNS
Firewalls
Load Balancers
Certificates
Citrix
Citrix
PowerShell
Windows Server
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Active Directory
DNS
NetScaler ADC
SQL Server
Infrastructure as Code
Monitoring
Incident Response
Disaster Recovery
High Availability
Load Balancing
Capacity Planning
Synthetic Monitoring
Version Control